


Early Life Dwight

by AnxiousPeaches



Category: Dead By Daylight
Genre: Character Study, Happy moments - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Sad moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:03:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiousPeaches/pseuds/AnxiousPeaches
Summary: A series of moments from Dwight's life before being taken to the Entity's realm. References my other fic The Spider's Hook.





	Early Life Dwight

Opportunity blooms from devastation. That’s what my grandpa used to tell me. Being a history buff and patriot, he often spent many sunny afternoons going over ways America took a terrible situation and made it into something profitable. While I didn’t care much about history, the sentiment always appealed to me.

His words bounced in my head when I locked myself in my room that Sunday. If he were still alive, I’m sure he would be throwing a fit right along with my parents. Thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with his scorn too.

Even if I wanted to leave, my brain and body made it impossible. The thought would make my chest ache. Whenever I heard my parents talking outside, my brain would short circuit. I couldn’t breathe. My hands and legs shook. Thankfully they’d given up on the idea of taking me to church. Too embarrassing to bring me out of the house.

When I woke up early Monday morning, my stomach felt like it was eating me alive. It felt like forever since I’d eaten anything. I paced around my room listening to every noise in the house. My little brother and sister were getting ready for school. Blake, second grade, already knew the routine. Cassie, who just started preschool, had a little more trouble getting ready. He had to help her get dressed and pack her little book bag. I would have helped, but my parents had forbidden me from going anywhere near them.

As soon as I heard the front door shut for the final time, I breathed a sigh of relief. My parents left for work at five in the morning every day, so I knew they were gone. Alone at last. I went downstairs and into the kitchen. I didn’t bother with formalities, just grabbed the bottle of orange juice from the fridge and chugged it down.

Someone left a pile of mail on the counter. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my name typed neatly on a crumpled envelope. A wet, hot coffee stain soaked through the corner of the envelope. It’d already been opened but it looked like the papers inside were all still there. The anger I tried to muster up fizzled out into an apathetic yawn.

I opened the letter and scanned through the paragraphs.  _ Massachusetts Institute of Technology. _ My heart did a flip. A new wave of nervousness took over my body, but for the first time in a while it wasn’t because of something bad. I scanned a little faster.  _ You’ve been accepted. _

“Oh,” I gasped after a moment of silence. While most of my grades had been great, my senior year suffered a lot. I didn’t expect them to accept me.  _ Grandpa was right, after all. Opportunity really does bloom from devastation. _ I started pacing around the front room, reading each word of the letter carefully.  _ Financial aid. Housing. Advising appointments. This is a lot but… _ There wasn’t a lot of time to get all that handled, yet I felt oddly serene.  _ I’m getting out of here. Freaking finally. _

I looked out the front window of the house I’d lived in my entire life. A blue SUV sat in the driveway. My dad’s car. A few things clicked into place. He must have opened the letter up this morning while making coffee.  _ I’m so freaking stupid. I should have checked the window before coming down here. Stupid. Idiot. Fuck, I mean, frick. _

“MIT, huh?” I heard his voice coming from the kitchen. He’d been hanging around the downstairs waiting for me to figure it out. There was a dining room connected to the kitchen. He probably watched me read the whole letter right there.

He leaned up against the kitchen counter with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands. My dad never looked so causal before. He didn’t have the normal business wear I saw him in every day he went to work. I felt self-conscious of the stupid firetruck red pajama pants and white shirt I wore. It was such an insignificant detail to worry about, in the grand scheme of things.

When I was little, he’d put me on his lap and show me the photo album grandma put together before she died. There were dozens of photos of him that looked just like me. Even as a teenager, he had the same dorky glasses that I wore. My parents used to tease that I didn’t get an ounce of my mom in me.  _ I bet he wishes I didn’t look like him now. _

Whatever thoughts were going through his head made him grimace. I wanted more than anything to go back to my room and hide. I felt like a deer caught in headlights. “I’m going to cut to the chase. Your mom and I want you out of the house in one hour.”

He kept talking but the sounds didn’t make any sense. They warbled in my ear like an alien language.  _ One hour. _ The room felt like it was growing smaller every second.  _ “ _ Wait, what?” I asked.  _ Please let this be a mistake. _

“Pack your stuff and get out,” he said again. “I put your birth certificate and social security card on your bed. I’m shutting your phone service at the end of the week. That should give you enough time to call whoever you need to call.”

“You can’t—”

“I can, and I will.” While he tried to keep his voice calm, I could hear the strain. He set his coffee down and set the time on the stove top.  _ One hour.  _ Seconds ticked down. It shouldn’t have surprised me. When I came out as gay, my parents made it pretty clear that they weren’t going to support me. After the scene I made last Sunday, I’d fallen out of grace permanently.  _ At the end of the day, I’m still their kid. Isn’t that enough to be loved?  _ No matter how long I stood there, he didn’t say anything. “I’m not letting you back into this house once this timer goes off.”

I clutched the letter for dear life as I rushed to my bedroom.  _ How much clothing do I need to pack? I guess that depends on how long I’ll be… homeless. Ohgod Ican’tdo this. _ Panic boiled up into my lungs.  _ Can’tbreathe.  _ That last panic attack hit me so hard I still had chest pains. Now each small breath felt like I was being stabbed with dozens of needles. A fire in my throat accompanied the tears welling up in my eyes.  _ I can’t do this right now.  _ Panic attacks were rarely convenient.

My clothes littered the floor from weeks of avoiding laundry. The action figure toys from when I was a kid sat proudly displayed on the shelf. Every item I owned had to be ranked. I couldn’t afford to be sentimental. I choked back a sob as I tried to find something to put my clothes in.

A small bookbag sat in the corner of my room. It had been there since my last year of high school finished up a few months ago.  _ How much can I fit in here? _ I unzipped the pockets and dumped everything out. Old exams fluttered to the floor. Notebooks, filled with class notes and doodles, landed on top of them with a thud.  _ Two changes of clothes, maybe?  _

“Forty minutes!” My dad called as he walked up the stairs. My stomach threatened to throw up the orange juice.

_ I need to change.  _ The red pajamas, wet with sweat, clung to my skin.  _ I haven’t showered in three days.  _ Just another thing I’d neglected. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed, let alone take the effort to get in a shower.  _ He’s not going to let me. Where am I going to—whatever, this isn’t the time for that.  _ I grabbed whatever clothes my hands could find and locked myself in the bathroom.

_ This isn’t your fault.  _ I splashed cold water over my face.  _ What were you supposed to do? Let it keep happening?  _ In the mirror, a tired boy stood with drooped shoulders. The white overhead light cast a pale blue shade over his face. His puffy eyes, still red from the night of crying, stared back at me with regret.  _ This isn’t who I used to be. _ I pulled off my shirt. Red splotches still decorated the skin under my collarbone.  _ You’re a victim, not a villain. _

“You better not be stealing anything in there,” my dad said, knocking on the door.  _ I’ve never stolen anything in my entire life, but okay then. _

I finished getting dressed as he continued to knock. When I walked out, he made a show of searching the bathroom as if he expected something to be gone.  _ What would I have stolen? Soap?  _ In retrospect, stealing soap would have been smart.  _ Can’t worry about that now. Other things to focus on. _

He stood in my doorway and watched me like a hawk as I tried to pack.  My hands started to shake as I gathered up the rest of my things. The letter from the university got tucked away in one of the pockets, along with my birth certificate and social security card. I had a vague understanding that those things were important.

_ I’m going to forget something important and them everything’s going to be screwed and I can’t do this it’s insane I can’t—  _ My lungs ached with each shallow breath. Dad shouted off another time.  _ Where the fuck am I going to go? Everyone hates me now.  _ A terrifying thought passed by.  _ I could beg Thomas to help me. Oh God, no, that’s crazy.  _ Thomas hated me. Even if he felt like being merciful, the things he’d have me do to “earn his forgiveness” would be enough reason to commit suicide.

I stuffed a phone charger in my bag.  _ Focus. What else do you need? I don’t even know what I need, I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t… _

This time I couldn’t keep the tears at bay. “Dad, don’t do this,” I gasped in between sobs.  _ Men don’t cry. Why are you crying? Stop it.  _ My body shook as I tried, and failed, to stop.

The neutral expression on his face didn’t change. “You don’t have time to waste.”

“I can’t help who I am. I tried to change--” 

“You have five seconds to shut the hell up,” Dad growled. His fists clenched tight. 

“Please.” My voice turned into a whine. “I don’t even know where to go—”

“I don’t care where you go,” he snapped.

“Dad—”

“I don’t care what happens to you,” he interrupted. My heart felt like it was shattering into a million pieces. The crying turned into a wail as he grabbed my bookbag and shoved it against my chest. “Get the hell out of my house.”

“You said—”

He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me out of the room. My foot twisted the wrong way as he shoved me down the stairs.  _ Fuck.  _ Swearing was the least of concerns at that point. My hands caught the railing before I could fall completely, but my ankle now radiated with pain. Even that didn’t stop him from dragging me through the living room and out of the front door.

“Don’t ever contact us. If you ever come near Blake or Cassie, I won’t hesitate to have you arrested,” he said before slamming the door in my face.

_ Please don’t do this to me.  _ I pounded on the front door, screaming for him to listen. Like prairie dogs, the neighbors poked their heads out of their comfortable homes to watch me wail. The skin on my knuckles wore down as I continued to bang my fists over the wood.  _ This isn’t fair. I’m the victim!  _ I expected someone to call the police, but no one did. When the show didn’t progress past that point, they grew bored and went back inside.

After an hour, I realized that no amount of screaming would make him care. The silent neighborhood watched as I wandered the into the street with no direction. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! Depending on how things go, I might continue doing this as a series about Dwight and his early life. Anyway, thanks for reading!


End file.
